wake blake

Based on that last post, you might think I'm out of words. I'm not. There's major stuff going on around me that has me short on time to think. We're moving. No doubt I will talk more about that at some point, but it's more than I'm ready to process even here right now. So for now, how about my hot take on some screenshots? The new cross-town Muni is opening this weekend. Some people are calling it a train to nowhere because our downtown is so empty right now. Remember when we started the lockdown, and the promise was, "well, if we take this seriously now, we'll recover quicker?" Did it work? Let's see, what else? Didn't we just run something about sea level rise? Why another one? Well, yeah, and also, because it's a big deal. But don't worry, if NYC winds up underwater, we're building a new one every month! ...

Ok, ok, ok, I'm not sure if this should be a Wake Blake or a Bike & Battery or both. Whatever. I feel like saying something, even though I don't know what it is. At top, a concept for another self-driving e-scooter. It's almost like the idea in Self-Driving Mystery is going to happen! This one can go super fast, 0-60 in under 3 seconds. A little less exciting, but possibly more practical is this e-powered trailer. Instead of propelling you at great speed, it propels your stuff at the same speed as your bike. And while the Sondors Metacycle early production bikes ($6.5k) are getting all the headlines this week, here's another American brand (I hesitate to say Made in America, I don't think it is) with a competitive commuter emoto at $8k.  The Ryvid Anthem. It's pretty fun looking, and I bet a blast to ride. Perhaps it's worth hanging on to my motorcycle licens...

Recently, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a pivot.  With downtown office vacancies at 25%, and only 40% of the number of people using the existing leased offices as pre-pandemic, she figures we need to change who we're marketing downtown to. So we now need to start appealing to bio-tech companies. I guess the thinking there is workers have to commute to an office in order to use specialized lab equipment. There is a new type of residential development happening, where part of a building is residential, and part of it does have specialized live-work arrangements like that. But that's not what she's looking for. She wants the old style, two hour plus commute. But we the people have resolutely spoken, with our butts. We're staying put. So what can a city faced with an epic housing shortage do with all that empty space? Even Musky gets it, in his assholish rich guy way. We can mak...

Greetings again from up near the Canada border. Anecdotally, I've seen more ebikes here than last summer. No pictures yet, tho. So instead, let's cover some Bike & Battery news from further afield. It strikes me that our "progressive", erm, no "liberal", well not exactly, our "democrat" governor could have spent the budget surplus in a longer-term way. But I guess politics loves a payoff. And we'll just go the way of ye olde dinosaurs. Even the #SingularityNow wants to quit driving. What happens when you give an AI the job of driving people around? It forms a union and then goes on strike. Meanwhile, in bike land. Bafang, a big motor maker, has come up with an internally geared hub, with automatic shifting. One of the big issues with mid-drive ebikes is the torque stripping gears and stretching chains. This lo...